Top Down approach

Crime

Crime

Ant sort of act that breaks the law and warrants punishment

Cultural issues with crime

What is a crime in some cultures may not be a crime in others, such as polygamy.

Historical issues with crime

What is considered a crime may change throughout time such as corporal punishment or homosexuality and therefore is historically specific.

Official statistics

Figures based on numbers of crimes that are reported and recorded by police and used by governments to inform crime prevention strategies.

Issues with official stats

Unreliable as the significantly underestimate the extent of crime. So much crime is unreported or recorded that only 25% is included in the official stats and the other 75% makes up the ‘dark figure’ of crime.

Farrington and Dowds

Reported that police in one borough of Nottingham were more likely to report thefts of under £10, causing a spike in theft stats.

Victim surveys

Questionnaire asking a sample of people which crimes had been committed towards them over a period of time and whether or not they reported the crime.

Strength of victim surveys

More likely to include details of crimes that were not reported to or recorded by the police, making them a much more accurate assessment of crime rates.

Weakness of victim crime surveys

Respondents must have an accurate recall of the they have been victim to. Telescoping may mean they recall crimes that happened long ago because of the trauma, and therefore distort the figures.

Politicized crime stats

Political party in power will focus on drawing attention to reducing crime stats, whereas opposition parties will focus on crime with increasing stats.

Offender profiling

Tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile characteristics of unknown criminals, to narrow down the potential pool of suspects.

Behavioral evidence

Things that tell us how an offender went about committing a crime

Criminal consistency

The idea that a person’s behavior at a crime scene is consistent with their behavior in real life

Top down approach

The American approach, a qualitative profile based on police experience and case studies where criminals are assigned to one of two categories based on witness reports and crime scene evidence and then worked out from there.

Creation of top down approach

In-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers including Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson.

Typological offender profiling

There are different types of offender which can be worked out through behavioral evidence. The offenders type allows police to predict other things about them.

What is the top down approach suitable for

More extreme or unusual crimes e.g. murder or rape

Organised offenders

Evidence of the crime being planned in advance and targets a specific victim. Is usually socially and sexually competent with above average intelligence.

Disorganized offender

Shows little evidence of planning, spontaneous, little control maintained, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower then average IQ

FBI profiling process (TD)

Data assimilation, crime classification, crime reconstruction, profile generation

Data assimilation

Data compiled from police reports, post mortems and crime scene photos

Crime classification

Profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or disorganized

Crime reconstruction

Hypothesis about crime sequence, offender and victim behavior

Profile generation

Offenders physical, demographic and behavioral characteristics

TD AO3 - specific crime

Best suited for extreme crimes where clues about the suspect are left at the crime scene e.g. rape, cult, arson. More common offences such as burglary don’t reveal much about the offender. Meaning TD is a limited approach to crime solving.

TD AO3 - outdated

Approach assumes that offenders have patterns of behavior and motivations that remain consistent across situations and contexts. Alison et al suggest this is naieve and reductionist as well as having low validity as contexts are constantly changing and the approach is no adaptive.

TD AO3 - only supports 50%

Canter et al used TD approach to analyze 100 murders in USA. Found sufficient evidence to support the organised offender type, however little evidence to support the disorganized offender. Undermines the classification system as a whole, as only 50% is correct.